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Although the “open access” and “bibliography” appear to be contradictory concepts, as the first applies to the idea of direct and unrestricted access and the use of the resources' content and the latter refers to the list of resources' descriptions, the issue of open access to bibliography is widely discussed by the librarians' community nowadays. This paper aims to elaborate on the subject of the Polish national bibliographic agency's approach along with its experiences and problems.

“Open Access to National Bibliographies: Best Practices and Business Models” was the subject of the Bibliographic Section's session of the IFLA World Library and Information Congress that took place in Gothenburg in 2010. This article is based on a discussion paper presented at the session.

The better realization of the idea of “open access” to bibliography needs more effort and further cooperation among the libraries, publishers and institutions of law especially in respect of copyright, legal deposit and press laws. International exchange of experience and popularization of good practice in this field is necessary for success and inclusion of the national bibliography into open bibliographic universe.

The Polish National Bibliography is a public good, i.e. a non‐commercial product. Its principal aim is to give complete and reliable bibliographic data about the intellectual and cultural heritage and to make them easily accessible not only for librarians and other actors of the publishing market, but also for the general public.

A chronological outline of library and bibliographic development prefaces this case‐study. It is not exhaustive and is meant to be only indicative of the evolution of library and bibliographic services and does not in itself replace a detailed history of the subject area.

This paper deals with current efforts to control the amorphous range of newsprint ephemeral documents that have dominated the Nigerian literary market for nearly thirty years. The materials which are of inestimable value to social scientists, administrators, politicians, historians, the military and commerce, originate from a variety of sources. Some of the major sources are identified and the lack of any conscious and adequate attempts by their producers to bibliographically control these publications are hereby examined in relation to the special responsibilities of the National Library of Nigeria in the production of a comprehensive national bibliography.

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

To the initiate in French studies, the term “French Literature” might be understood to mean anything — and everything — written in the French language. Etymologists would no doubt support this interpretation wholeheartedly. To scholars of French literature, however, the term has a very different meaning. Professors in the field generally consider French literature to be that written in France since the Middle Ages, a literature which stands apart from other written works in the French language. This is not to say that there is not a very substantial body of literature written, for instance, in French‐speaking Canada, or Algeria, Tunisia, Haiti, or a myriad of other places. Certain individuals specialize in the literature (French) of those countries, but they do not refer to those writings as “French Literature”; they label them “French‐Canadian Literature,” “French‐African Literature,” and the like. This essay will be limited to a discussion of French literature — the major literature of France, considered worthy of special attention or acclaim by readers and scholars worldwide.

In 1974, at the height of the French revolutionary terror, the abbé Henri Grégoire, a member of the Convention and of its Committee of Public Instruction, presented a report to the Committee on the need for a national bibliography and a national library. He attacked the bibliophages (“eaters of books”) who wanted, in the name of the revolutionary republic, to destroy the accumulated books and libraries of the pre‐revolutionary era. The materials in these libraries, he argued, were “national assets”, which should all be listed in a national bibliography and made available to the nation in a great national library.

This article is a survey of the broad field of bibliographical control of linguistic scholarship in the Indo‐European languages, although some titles described here are also pertinent for non‐Indo‐European languages. Improvement of bibliographies in this field as well as desiderata are noted. Special attention is given to the characteristics of existing or needed bibliographies which will permit computerization; but the need for scholarly insight in planning and supervising the compilation of bibliographies is also emphasized. Major works such as the Linguistic Bibliography and the MLA International Bibliography are reviewed in some detail; and the linguistic bibliographies of individual Indo‐European languages, ranging from the rather extensive literature on Germanic and Romance languages to areas with smaller circles of interest such as the Celtic languages, also receive appropriate attention. Bibliographical coverage of both descriptive and historical linguistics is noted. The survey indicates duplication of effort in certain fields and suggests the need for co‐operative effort.

TWO MASSIVE works of scholarship recently published by the Clarendon Press—Edward Graves' A bibliography of English history to 1485 (1975) and H J Hanham's Bibliography of British History 1851–1914(1976)—have brought close to fruition a project originally proposed over ninety years ago by Henry R Tedder, for many years both secretary and librarian of the Athenaeum. In fact it was at the 1885 Plymouth meeting of the Library Association that he first read a paper advocating the preparation of a bibliography of national history.

The existing situation of library and information infrastructure in Arab countries is examined. Six factors studied were: status of the national library, state of the art of national bibliographic control, availability of indexing and abstracting services, state of inter‐library co‐operation, existing networking connections, and applications of modern technology. The information was gathered by reviewing the relevant literature and by administering a questionnaire to selected resource persons in the relevant countries. Information collected from 15 countries revealed some inherent shortcomings in the infrastructures of these countries which impede any efforts towards networking and resource sharing.

The following classified, descriptive list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” The prevailing policy of including all reference books received has temporarily allowed the listing of titles with imprints older than two years; with increased receipt of more current titles from a longer list of publishers, this policy will soon be discontinued (with the exception of reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.